


Check-In

by phantasmagorighoul (ghoullly)



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Peter is an impromptu therapist and he does great, Phone Calls & Telephones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 06:43:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19312747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghoullly/pseuds/phantasmagorighoul
Summary: A frantic Michael has a panic attack while at a robotics conference with his dad and calls Phone Guy back home while he's at work to see if he can help him calm down.Phone Guy is a saint and knows exactly how to help, even if he makes a couple mistakes.





	Check-In

**Author's Note:**

> i have at least two other fics in process that involve michael talking about peter so!! i'd like to finish those up bc they've been wips for over a year. this was one of them!!
> 
> it's nice to finally finish this. i like to think that michael and william show off the springsuits at conferences every once and a while and when they go william entrusts peter with the restaurant since he's worked there the longest.
> 
> once again this is unedited bc i have a 10 hour shift tomorrow and i'm sleepy
> 
> enjoy xx

His chest already starting to constrict on itself, he slid against the wall, the hotel phone in his trembling fist.

_ Please answer. _

Ringing on the other end. Still no pickup. He swallowed as much air as he could manage, but it still seemed nowhere near enough; his lungs still drowned in panic and his head still spun.

_ Come on. _

“Hello, hello? Fredbear’s Family Diner, how may I help you today?”

Michael’s anxiety was washed over with relief for only a moment--that left as fast as it came, and with shaking arms, he shifted his elbows onto his knees in an attempt to steady them. The chipping paint was cool against his back through the fabric of his shirt.

_ Try and calm yourself a bit first. Don’t scare him. _

“Hello...?”

The brunet closed his eyes, trying desperately to regather composure. Bringing his voice to a whisper, he gripped the phone tighter, his knuckles going white and plastic clicking under his skin. If he squeezed his fingers any harder, the phone would break into pieces right there in his hand.

“...Peter.”

He heard the other man squeak in confusion on the other line, quieting his voice.

“S-Sir?”

“No,” was all Michael could manage before he lost himself again. Eyes wet with fear, he set the phone in his lap in defeat to give him time to wheeze and gasp for air. Clammy hands slid over his face and his back heaved with each heavy breath, every muscle in his body trembling in panic. He could hear Peter’s muffled voice through the speaker, calling out for whoever happened to have rang him.

“M-Mr. Afton?”

_ The password, Michael. Tell him the damned password so he can relax too. _

_ It’ll do you no good if you both are in a panic. _

Involuntary tears slipped down his cheeks from the overflow of water in his eyelids, and he roughly palmed the sockets to wipe them away. He hardly had the strength to pick the phone back up, his muscles weak. But he did it, snaking it to his shoulder, letting his head fall to the side to keep it there. He sank further.

“Peter. P-Peter, eggs benedict.”

Immediately Peter blew out a sigh of ease, but he still carried a certain tenseness in his voice.

The password became necessary after they had started dating. Michael and his father were entirely indistinguishable over the phone, and they needed to protect themselves from anyone finding out. It became a pain, but it saved Peter from slipping up plenty of times before.

“Oh, Michael, thank G-God it’s you, huh?” Peter let out a nervous laugh. “I, uh... thought you were your dad. I thought something... s-something, ah...” He didn’t let himself finish, pardoning himself for a minute while he got up to shut William’s office door to provide them some sort of privacy.

_ ‘I thought something happened to you.’ _

_ Of course. _

_ You saw visions of my body mangled and twisted by an iron maiden of a costume. _

_ You saw me bloodied and dying in my father’s arms, and you saw him tangled in the phone cords as he called the first person he thought of to tell them I wasn’t going to make it home. _

_ It’s entirely understandable. It’s entirely... plausible. _

_ But nothing has happened. Sorry to scare you. _

Michael heard the creak of the chair in his dad’s office as Peter sat back down, rolling it close to the desk. “Michael, what’s wrong? I-Is everyone okay?”

Who was ‘everyone’? It was only him and his dad. Anybody else who could’ve ever been a part of that ‘everyone’ was dead. 

Michael gasped for air, nodding even though Peter couldn’t see him. His hands were going numb. Desperate to return the feeling, he harshly dug his nails into the palms, throwing his head back against the wall.

“M-Mike?”

“Yes. S-Sorry, yes, everything--well, everyone’s fine. Kind of. He’s f-fine, but I’m--I’m a bit of a mess--” His sentence stopped short as his breath was stolen from him again, and he sought for air, sweat beading at his hairline.

“It’s okay, Mikey. P-Please don’t worry about telling me all at once. I can wait. I promise.”

Michael nodded again, swallowing hard and focusing on the hotel room ceiling, water spots pooling in the corner. He tried his best to even out his breath, his vision swirling as he lingered on the edge of hyperventilation. He could hear his boyfriend breathing quietly on the other line; every once and awhile, he would adjust the way he was sitting in his chair, and Michael could hear it squeak.

“Dad, h-he--” Michael dug his nails even harder into his palm, “he made me w-wear... Fredbear today.”

Peter sucked in a breath that was both understanding and horrified at the same time. “Oh... O-Oh, Mikey, I’m so sorry--”

“--He--He did it. O-On purpose.” Michael pulled his knees to his chest and ducked his head in between them, curling the phone cord around his finger. “Him and I, we--we got into a fight last night. We were s-supposed to show Bonnie today, but--he changed the--the arrangements. And made me g-get in Fredbear instead.”

“Just deep breaths, okay, Mikey? J-Just take deep breaths for me. Will you do that, Mike?”

“I--I’m trying, Peter, I’m trying, I’m trying--”

“Hey.” The manager on the other line fell far more serious than Michael was typically used to, which was enough to silence the panicked man and help him focus on his breath. “Don’t talk, Michael, o-okay? I don’t want you to think about anything but your breath. I’m gonna talk to you, but, um... d-don’t talk back. Not at least until you know you’re able to pull in a decent amount of air. A-Alright?”

“Yes,” Michael managed to croak out, his voice hoarse. He kept his knees pulled up, feeling himself shake against them. Every once and awhile he would have anxiety attacks and call Peter up at home and he’d do the same exact thing he was about to do now. Michael was incredibly thankful they had started talking to one another after awkwardly watching each other work around the pizzeria for a couple of weeks; even if they didn’t become boyfriends--or even if they broke up down the road--Michael knew Peter would have been there for him regardless.

Peter was one of a kind and Michael was half-tempted to believe he didn’t deserve him.

(But he had convinced himself that he didn’t deserve a lot of things, and he would be damned if he let his anxiety keep him from loving his boyfriend the way that he should.)

“The conference is only one more day. Y-You made it through this one, you’ll make it through tomorrow, and then you get to come... come home.”

“We have a-another showing tonight, though--”

_ “--Michael.” _

Mike sucked in a breath, unable to hold back a small chuckle. “S-Sorry.”

He heard Peter sigh and lean back in the dusty office chair. “So there’s another showing tonight. Huh.” The Afton heir realized that his boyfriend actually was at a loss for words for once. Michael groaned and buried his face again, leaving the phone in his fist to face the ceiling. “...Well, whether he makes you wear Bonnie or, uh--Fredbear or not, the showings aren’t usually more than t-twenty minutes. I think.”

Peter was silent for a moment as if he were waiting for a response; Michael knew he probably was because he likely forgot he instructed Michael not to talk.

_ “O-Oh. Oh yeah.  _ Um. Yeah. Like twenty minutes or something. T-Think of it as quick and painless, yeah?--Just five minutes four times. And then you’re done.”

Michael nodded, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing his face to his knees, still breathing heavily. Peter gave him a second, listening to him to try and track his progress.

_ How do you even have time to do this? Is the diner dead today? _

“A-And I know it might be tough, but just think--if you cooperate with your dad tonight, he  _ p-probably  _ won’t make you wear Fredbear tomorrow.”

He had a point. Michael let his knees fall a bit, feeling his heart begin to slow just slightly; the tension in his chest remained and spots still danced in front of his vision, but his head was starting to defog. He still near-gasped for breath, unable to get too much at once. The sickly cream color of their hotel room made it easy for him to see the shapes his mind was tracing on the walls.

“T-Tomorrow is another day, which means everything resets, so you’ll wake up feeling just fine. It’ll go quick, and before you know it, you’ll go to bed again to wake up and come home the next morning. It’s all gonna work out, Mikey.”

Michael heard a smile through Peter’s words, even though they fell to a near-whisper. “And once y-you’re back here in Hurricane, then that means I can see you again and give you lots of kisses.”

The other man laughed, feeling his lungs ease up. Michael managed to stop shaking for the most part; he carefully let his legs lay flat on the grimy carpet and his head back against the wall. He moved the phone back up to his face, listening in silence.

“You can even stay the night if you want.” Peter cleared his throat, nervous all of a sudden. “I--I mean! If you want to! You probably would, ah... want to sleep in your own bed after four nights of being in a crummy hotel one--”

“--Your bed is just fine,” Michael cut in, managing to stabilize his breath enough for him to not risk hyperventilation. He sucked in a few deep breaths just for good measure, feeling the last of the tears that welled in his eyes spill down his cheeks as he blinked them away. He wiped at his face with his free hand, sniffling. “Or your couch, I guess. But if sleeping in your bed means I’d get to be close to you then I’ll take your bed, hands down.”

Michael could tell that he’d flustered Peter on the other line, the Afton son grinning as he heard the manager stumble to find his words.

(He hadn’t even meant it in a dirty way. Peter was just so easy to work up and he loved it.)

“Y-You sound like, ah... like, um. Like you’re doing a little better?”

“I’m doing alright, love. Breath’s even, so I at least won’t black out.”

“C-Check in with me.”

Michael sighed, looking up towards the ceiling. The water spots and questionable stains made him wish he hadn’t.

“Okay. Ready when you are.”

“Breath.”

Michael took a second to track this. “...Even; kind of quick, but even.”

“Heart.”

“Still pretty fast.” He put a hand over his chest, feeling his heart thump roughly through the fabric of his undershirt. “It’s not as bad as it was, but I’m having borderline palpitations.”

Peter hummed, dissatisfied at that. “Brain.”

“Bad. It’s taking all I have to ignore these thoughts.”

“Then we shouldn’t ignore them... p-probably. So.” Peter swiveled in the chair but hurriedly turned back around when the phone cord quickly wrapped itself around his neck and threatened to pop out of the answering machine. Michael heard the frantic thumps of Peter kicking underneath the desk and slapping his palms onto the polished wood to stop himself, as well as the clicking of the cord against the plastic casing of the phone.

“...U-Uh. So we should probably have you tell me about those, too.”

Michael sucked in air through his teeth, hissing in hesitance, and he hadn’t realized he’d done it loud enough for Peter to hear.

“N-No, Mikey, listen; I remember reading once, uh, s-somewhere, that letting that stuff bottle up inside us is really bad for us. So if you tell me w-what you’re thinking, then--then maybe that’ll take some of that weight off your chest and help your heart relax and make you feel better.”

Michael was silent. Peter sighed through his nose, voice growing gentle and quiet.

“Will you do that for me?”

The unnerved man glanced back at the door, listening for anybody who might be on the other side. He didn’t hear anyone through the walls, either, so he guessed it was safe to vent for a little while.

“...Yes.”

“Thank you, Mikey,” Peter cleared his throat. “S-So. Main thoughts. Go.”

“I don’t want to see my dad for at least a couple of days but I’m going to have to see him later and I’m not ready. I’m nervous that the sight of Fredbear again is going to give me another panic attack and I just want to come home.”

Peter took a second to process all of this and clicked his tongue.

“Okay. W-Well, those thoughts are completely understandable. I m-mean it’s sad that you have those thoughts, but they make sense. A-And I--I want you to know that you’re allowed to think them. Okay?”

Michael rubbed his face, exhausted. “Okay.”

“I’ll, um... address Fredbear first. When you see him, look past him. U-Uh, tune him out, yeah? If he makes you wear him again, pretend you’re in Bonnie instead. All that’s different is the teeth--” Peter caught himself with a hitch of his breath, realizing that was the worst possible thing he could’ve pointed out. Michael felt his stomach twist and his throat close. “O-Oh God, um, I, uh--Oh God, Mike, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, you forgot,” Michael struggled for breath again.

“I--It’s not okay! Um, let me--”

“--No, you’re right, the teeth; they’re different.” Mike felt the sweat bead underneath his curly bangs and he slipped his hand under, slicking them back over his head to cool down. “I just want this panic attack to be over with--let’s keep going. Please.”

Peter sounded dumbfounded at first but adjusted the way he was sitting. “U-Um, okay, just look through the teeth out to the audience. Pretend they’re kids and it’s just a normal day. D-Do you think you could do that?”

A thump sounded from the hallway outside and Michael snapped his head towards it, pulling the receiver closer to his face. “Y-Yes.”

“O-Okay, good. So--”

“--Peter,” Michael whispered, carefully standing up, praying that his legs wouldn’t collapse, “Peter, hang on. Don’t say anything.”

He heard his boyfriend hold his breath on the other line, cautious of the way his chair creaked, and Michael set the phone down very gently on the dresser; it made a barely-audible click, and he turned back towards the door. Walking closest to the walls so the floor didn’t make any noise, Michael moved to skim his hand over the cold wood once he reached it. A few more noises came from the other side and the Afton used this opportunity to fully move in front of the door, looking through the peephole. 

A maid was in the hallway, letting herself into the room across from theirs. 

Relieved it wasn’t his father, Michael walked back to where he left the phone, sitting on the bed instead of on the floor.

“Peter, you there?”

“Huh?” Michael heard something set on the desk; it sounded like he had taken a drink. “Y-Yeah. I’m here. You alright?”

“Yeah, it was just a maid.” MIchael laid down, moving his arm behind his head and propping it up, leaving the phone pressed between his arm and ear. 

“O-Okay, good. Um, where were we?”

Michael sighed. “Teeth.”

“Yes! Oh, yes,” He heard Peter drum his fingers against the oak, “Love those teeth.”

Michael snorted, closing his eyes and waiting for Peter to realize he’d made a mistake.

“Oh--Oh shit.”

There it was.

“It’s okay, Peter, I’m calmed down quite a bit; the maid kind of brought me back to the present.” Michael adored his boyfriend and his awkwardness; he was a huge dork and it complimented Mike’s aloofness fairly well.

Peter hummed. “R-Really?”

Mike laughed tiredly. “Yeah.”

“Okay, so--I’m gonna check in with you again, okay?”

“Alright, Peter.”

“Breath--”

Michael furrowed his brow, confused as to why Peter trailed off. He heard somebody say something in the background. Someone must have come into his dad’s office.

“H-Huh?” Peter had his hand cupped over the receiver. “What’s up--w-what do you need?”

Michael tried his hardest to listen in to see if he could recognize the employee. It was a guy, he knew that much, but he must’ve stayed at the door; he couldn’t make much out.

“I’m--can it wait just a few more minutes? I’m talking to Mr. Afton.” Peter uncupped the receiver, pulling the phone to his face. “Mr. Afton?”

Grinning, Michael cleared his throat and dropped his voice a tad. “Yes. What seems to be the problem?”

“I just want to double check--um, y-you instructed me to  _ not  _ bring the Fredbear and Spring Bonnie mascot suits onto the floor, right?” Michael could tell Peter was trying his damnedest not to crack a smile. 

“That is correct. If the animatronics aren’t there, then the mascots shouldn’t be, either. If a child asks, then they are to be told they’re on vacation and will be back soon.”

There was silence, and Michael assumed that Peter had held the phone out for the employee to listen. There were more muffled voices.

“I--I’ll be right out, okay? Just tell them the same thing Mr. Afton just told you to say. Alright? Um--shut the door, please.”

Michael held his breath (as well as his laughter) until he heard Peter again. When Peter began to laugh Michael did also, and the boyfriends laughed together until their sides hurt. 

“You’re indistinguishable, Mikey,” Peter took another drink of water, trying not to choke, “It sucks sometimes, b-but sometimes it can be  _ so  _ funny to mess with people.”

The Afton chuckled, running a hand through his hair. “God, I know right. That’s pretty much the only plus side that exists.”

“You sound like you’re okay.”

“I’m feeling a lot better, yes.” Michael smiled warmly. “Thank you, Peter.”

“Oh M-Mikey, I’m so glad I can help!” Peter’s voice perked up even more than usual; Michael noted he probably should watch his volume as to not give them away. “I feel so bad when I can’t be there for you when you get upset.”

“Just by talking to me you’re there for me, love. I really do love and appreciate everything you do. Thank you.”

Peter laughed a bit and Michael made a face, grinning.

“And just  _ what  _ are you laughing about?”

The manager giggled. “You did the British thing. That’s my favorite.”

_ Oh, Peter. _

_   
_ _ Please don’t ever change. _

_ Don’t let this shitty world dim your smile. _

“I should probably let you go back to doing your managerly things.”

He heard Peter shift in his chair; he was getting ready to get up. “A-Ah, I guess so... have you eaten yet today?”

“I had a continental breakfast bagel.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

Peter sounded concerned. “Michael, it’s 3:30. You, uh--you should really eat something.”

Michael hummed, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “I will. There’s this cafe built in downstairs I could grab something from.”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise, Peter.”

“...Okay.” Peter sounded satisfied, his voice growing quieter. “Just hang on for me, o-okay? Only two more times this round and then you’ll be done. Then you can come home and come over and I can tell you everything that’s happened in your stupid soap opera since you’ve been gone.”

Michael paused, looking down at the receiver. “You’ve been watching  _ The Immortal & The Restless?” _

“Ugh, unfortunately,” Peter joked, “I even have a notebook I’ve been jotting the main plot points down in so I don’t forget to tell you things.”

“But--it only airs at 4:30 in the morning?”

“Yes.” Peter didn’t skip a beat and didn’t sound like he hardly minded. “I don’t have to be in the store until 9:30, so I set my alarm for 4:30 to watch that and then go back to sleep for a little while longer. I don’t want you to miss anything important.”

Michael was dumbfounded in the best sort of way. “Peter, I--thank you!”

“O-Of course, Mikey.” He heard Peter stand up, too. “Anyways, I should probably go, too. I d-don’t like leaving them go by themselves for too long.”

“Oh, right. Okay, Peter. Thank you for talking to me; you’re the best.”

“Anything for you, Mike; I’m just glad you’re feeling better,” Peter smiled, “I’ll talk to you soon, o-okay?”

Michael felt his heart flutter. “Sounds good.”

“Okay. Bye Mikey; I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Michael hung the phone back onto the wall, giving himself a moment to process everything they talked about. His father very well  _ could  _ make him wear Fredbear again, but if he let go of his pride and complied to everything he asked, he likely would let him wear Bonnie instead. It was plausible.

He probably  _ should  _ get something to eat beforehand; they had the second showing in two and a half hours, meaning his dad would probably be upstairs anytime now.

Casting a glance back at his suitcase, he was barely able to catch sight of the worn-out golden fabric of a long-loved plush doll from behind his spare clothes. Big plastic blue eyes peered out at him, watching him with just as much intensity, and Michael felt a strange wave of calmness wash over him. Humming, he gave a tiny wave to Fredbear, a small smile on his face.

“See you later,” he spoke gently, grabbing his room key off of the bathroom counter and letting himself out.

His little brother’s plush was on his pillow when he came back.


End file.
